As I mentioned in parts 1 and 2 of this series, Andy Nazaroff of Guarantee Realty has consistently posted remarkable numbers when it comes to converting candidates into interviews, and interviews into hires.
Here are his numbers: From what we have sourced–approximately 950 total candidates to date this year for them–they have interviewed 232, and hired 48 new agents. This means they have interviewed 25% of ALL candidates and hired 21% of those interviewed.
As I spoke with Andy, what impressed me (in addition to what I wrote about in the first two editions), was how thoughtful he is about addressing potential problems preemptively and head-on with candidates. He clearly understands the psychology associated with making life-altering decisions, such as a career change. I have written about the anatomy of a decision before in previous editions (1,2,3) and have detailed the vital psychological importance of never wanting something more than the person you are talking to. The goal needs to be: remain neutral, but flush out all sides of the conflict around the decision.
Andy is very skilled at never taking either side of the conflict too far. But, he takes this a step further… He anticipates that there will naturally be people in the lives of these candidates who WILL represent either antagonistic or overly-supportive input from one or each side of the decision. It's the recruiter's job, according to Andy, to flush out who these people are and what impact they are having on the candidate.
He calls this identifying who is their "wind or anchor." He understands, correctly, that most people will be confused and led away from their own thoughts and opinions of becoming an agent if they have someone at home who is acting as the "wind behind the sails" or the "anchor to sink their dreams." The importance of uncovering this piece of information, in his view, is crucial to arriving at a conversation that is less influenced by the thoughts of others.
The fact that Andy sets a goal of discussing this, helps him uncover this information and leads him to become, potentially, a more trusted ally in the decision. If he can get the individual to reveal that they are being, for example, pushed into becoming an agent by their spouse, he might be able to help set the person free from that influence by restructuring the interview to "We want to figure out what's right for you..not for anyone else." Without this knowledge, Andy would unknowingly become an ally with some unseen force, and further force the candidate to make an overly compliant decision, rather than a healthy, grounded decision.
What is a more typical scenario for most candidates is that they might have several anchors in their life telling them "You can't do this in this market"… or "I don't think you'd be good at that" or "We need the money now" or a thousand other comments. Andy's objective is never to contradict these individuals (these anchors), but to turn it back to the candidate's own research and thoughts. He might ask: "What do you believe?" or "What are your goals?"
To put it simply, Andy never attempts to counter balance someone's anchor with a little wind or vice versa. He's discovered that simply getting the person to reveal and discuss the source is half the battle to neutralizing that negative influence.
More to come…
Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.
